This invention relates generally to networking technologies and, more particularly, relates to a system and method for providing access to network services.
High bandwidth access to the Internet is presently obtainable via digital subscriber line (“DSL”) networks offered by local exchange carriers (“LECs”) and hybrid fiber coax (“HFC”) networks offered by major cable companies. While high bandwidth access is becoming more ubiquitous, customer demand for high bandwidth access still lags behind the demand for access provided by dial-up Internet service providers (“ISPs”). This lack of demand may be caused by the fact that the aforementioned high bandwidth access providers typically do not offer customers the same suite of services (e.g., email, web hosting and, most importantly, technical support to facilitate connectivity to the network) as do dial-up ISPs.
In an attempt to increase the demand for high bandwidth Internet access, DSL providers have partnered with ISPs whereby ISPs provide customers access to their suite of services. Current implementations are both DSL provider and ISP provider specific. However, the operational costs of maintaining the geometric growth in interfaces required to support this partnership threatens their long-term economic viability. Meanwhile, the cable HFC network has remained somewhat more closed to the idea of teaming with ISPs. This is due to lack of infrastructure in the case of smaller franchises and the lack of competitive offerings in the case of AT&T and Time Warner (@Home and AOL respectively). Nonetheless, as the operators of these HFC networks begin the process of opening their networks to ISPs the same issues and problems will arise as are presently found in the presently implemented DSL/ISP partnerships.
An additional concern for ISPs with respect to these partnerships is the negative profit margin they realize. In this regard, the high operational costs combined with the high prices of broadband network access charged by the network providers assure that simply offering email, technical support, etc. will not suffice as a long term business model for ISPs. To survive, ISPs must generate high margin, sustainable revenue in the form of additional services and products offered to high bandwidth customers. Examples of these types of additional services would be music downloads, network disk storage, file backup services, etc. However, creating order entry, provisioning and rating capabilities across a large number of service providers using existing technologies would add another layer of operational complexity and increases the time to market for offering these types of new services. These costs can become so high as to prohibit ISPs from realizing this type of revenue. Small service providers would also have a much higher cost of entry into this market due to the number of disparate interfaces that need to be created to reach all their potential customers.
In an attempt to solve some of these problems, CableLab's B2B effort is proposing to develop standards for the creation of the necessary network interfaces. Furthermore, various venders in the enterprise application integration (“EAI”) and network spaces offer partial solutions using their software products to try and achieve a pseudo-standard interface to each provider/partner. These solutions, however, focus only on user qualification, order entry and basic provisioning. Complex product catalogs and usage rating are not being considered. Accordingly, presently contemplated solutions will not remove the operational complexity that results from a system having interconnects and monthly reconciliations with many partners.
Still further, as broadband networks become more complex and grow in size, the issue of IP address space will becomes a critical concern. New IP address space is becoming more and more scarce and, therefore, more valuable. While proposed industry solutions to this problem vary, most suggest creating a clear delineation of IP space between DSL/HFC networks and ISP assets. While this solution may provide a short term solution to the problem, as the Open Access model grows IP address space will again become a scarce commodity.